EMI sold DRM-free music as a premium tier and ended copy protection on the whole industry

In early 2007 every online music store was a locked room. Apple's FairPlay meant tracks from iTunes played only on iPods, and Apple licensed FairPlay to no one; rival stores' protected files never played on an iPod at all. European regulators had turned that lock into a liability — Norway's consumer ombudsman gave Apple a deadline to open FairPlay or leave the market, and the European Commission was questioning the iTunes-iPod tie-in. EMI, meanwhile, had run consumer tests in January 2007 and found one buyer in ten would pay more for unrestricted, higher-quality files.

On April 2, 2007, at EMI's London headquarters, EMI chief executive Eric Nicoli and Steve Jobs announced that EMI — first of the four major labels — would sell its entire catalogue DRM-free worldwide from May through iTunes: AAC files at 256 kbps, double the old 128, at 99p or $1.29 per track, with existing buyers able to upgrade for 30 cents. The Register covered the event; Jobs answered the piracy objection by pointing at the CD, which has never carried DRM and still outsold downloads — iTunes had already moved 2.5 billion songs. By October Apple had cut iTunes Plus back to 99 cents.

The endgame came on January 6, 2009, when Apple announced tiered pricing of 69¢, 99¢ and $1.29 and promised that by the end of the quarter all 10 million iTunes tracks would be DRM-free at the 256 kbps iTunes Plus quality — across Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI plus thousands of independents, effective that April (Ars Technica's report of the announcement). The premium tier that began as one label's experiment became the whole market's default, and copy protection disappeared from mainstream music sales.

Sell the removal of restrictions as a premium upgrade.

The premium tier reframed the deal: dropping DRM stopped being a concession Apple extracted and became a product EMI charged 30% more for — revenue, not loss of control.

The evidence said locks were not protecting revenue: CDs never had DRM, yet iTunes had sold 2.5 billion songs against free P2P — convenience, not copy protection, was what buyers paid for.

Regulation had made DRM a liability: Norway's ruling put FairPlay on a deadline and the EU was probing the iPod tie-in, so keeping the lock meant fighting in one court after another.

Interoperability had measurable demand: EMI's January 2007 tests found one in ten customers willing to pay extra for unrestricted files — a real price point, not a slogan.

EMI was the smallest of the four majors and the one least able to outlast the transition; moving first bought it Apple's marketing spotlight and the story of being on the customer's side.

Removing a restriction can be a product: charge for the freedom. Once a premium tier prices the upgrade, the restricted default cannot survive.

After the January 2009 announcement the entire iTunes catalogue went DRM-free that April at the new three-tier pricing. iTunes Plus itself had already drifted from a $1.29 premium to a 99¢ standard by late 2007, showing how quickly the premium collapsed once the market accepted unrestricted files. Music DRM never came back: downloads died into streaming services that ship unprotected audio, and copy protection retreated to video and e-books. The pricing move of April 2007 is the hinge on which music copy protection ended.